


Of Fire & Spice

by Nununununu



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Both before and after the Arrangement, Don't copy to another site, Halloween, Halloween Costumes, Historical, M/M, Podfic Available, Pre-Canon, Samhain, Trick or Treating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-05 18:23:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21213062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nununununu/pseuds/Nununununu
Summary: Two encounters between Crowley and Aziraphale on Halloween, one long ago and the other even further back.





	1. Part I: Two thousand years ago or so in Scotland

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rosemarycat5](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosemarycat5/gifts).

> The old newspaper articles mentioned in the fic are real, along with the events they reference (see end notes).
> 
> Update 31/10/20 - Djapchan made a gorgeous podfic of this! Please check it out (link at end of fic) :D <3

It was an appropriately cold, dark and stormy night for Samhain, although Aziraphale really could have done without all the rain. And the mud! He was absolutely _covered_ in it, as effectively as if he’d just laid down and rolled in it, and he just knew he’d still be able to feel it all over him even if he were to miracle it away.

“A bit miserable, this,” A voice announced brightly in his ear right as Aziraphale was attempting to negotiate the crowd of chilly, concerned Celts clustered around the huge sacred bonfire in the hope of getting a peek at the druid and whatever problem was holding up the ceremony – many of them standing far too close to it, in Aziraphale’s opinion, given how the wind was whipping up the flames. There were a lot of worried voices around him, muttering about spirits and the state of this year’s crops, people making dire predictions about the prophecies they were anxiously awaiting.

“Ah,” he stiffened under his mud-soaked robes, “I should have known it was you.”

“It’s always me,” Crowley grinned crookedly at him when Aziraphale turned to give him a look, but for once the expression looked ill on his face – he was paler than ever, red hair plastered to his forehead, just as splattered with mud as Aziraphale, the ratty old fur he had tossed over his head doing little to keep off the rain. His yellow eyes bright despite this, he gave Aziraphale a quirk of an eyebrow, “But, you know, tell me what exactly you’re referring to this time.”

“You’re absolutely _soaked_,” Aziraphale tutted instead. It wasn’t as if he was _concerned_ for the demon, or so he would claim to anyone Above who might ask: Crowley just looked downright pitiful, that was all.

“Yes, well,” Waving a hand, Crowley sought to shrug this off. The fact he was shivering rather spoiled the effect, “The animals this lot were expecting to sacrifice seem to have escaped. Stampeded across a surprisingly shallow river and ran away. I might have – slipped. Or been knocked over by one of them, maybe. Just a coincidence I was there, of course.”

“They – escaped?” Putting a hand on Crowley’s elbow without quite thinking about it, Aziraphale steered him back a bit from the crowd. The people were getting increasingly antsy despite the druid’s voice ringing out in the effort to control the situation. Huddling a little into his cloak, Aziraphale peered at the demon, “What, _all_ of them?”

“Oh yes, all of them,” Crowley wiped his nose on his sleeve, grinning faintly at the expression on Aziraphale’s face, “It’s going to cause a right panic in a few minutes when they fail to catch any of them. A terrible omen, you see. Crops will fail and all that, and all those ghosts will probably rampage everywhere.”

“Oh _Crowley_,” Aziraphale had been contemplating the merits of arranging a similar accident himself earlier, if truth were told, when he’d walked past the bleating animals in order to get to the bonfire.

“Don’t,” Crowley cut off any gratitude Aziraphale might have gone on to express. Chafing his hands, he then sniffed pathetically.

“Oh come here, will you,” Huffing, Aziraphale untucked an arm from the depths of his clock, pulled his dry sleeve down over his hand and used the fabric to mop the worst of the wet off Crowley’s face. He might have also miracled the rain into falling elsewhere for a bit, given none of the humans were paying them any attention now the crowd had figured out the reason for the delay, “I’m sure all these good people will feel consoled when they realise how blessed they are that the sacred fire is still burning despite all this rain. What a lovely symbol of a winter that will come without undue hardship.”

As if on cue, the rain started plummeting down all the harder, human voices that had been raised in anger crying first in dismay and then realisation. The druid was prompt to take advantage of the situation.

“A slippery bugger, that one,” Crowley noted approvingly. Having held notably still while Aziraphale dried him off, he now batted a hand at the angel as if in delayed reaction or an unconscious attempt to save face.

“Reminds me of someone I know,” Smiling as he slipped out of his cloak, Aziraphale threw it over the both of them before Crowley could either complain or escape. It was far easier to miracle the underside of the fur so it remained warm and dry over their heads, and let the rain fall as it wanted.

Crowley still spluttered anyway at the ambush. He also crowded in closer to Aziraphale under the cloak, but neither of them acknowledged this.

“Wouldn’t it be useful if these things came already waterproofed,” he mused a bit wistfully.

“Hmm, what’s that?” Aziraphale’s attention had been snagged by the sense of relief and hope now spilling out from the crowd as they prepared to each take a branch of the sacred fire to relight their hearths and protect their homes from the coming winter.

Thinking of the escaped livestock lost out there in the cold and the dark, he considered the fact that the animals might just find some sort of abandoned edifice to shelter in for the night.

“Nothing,” Crowley brushed his hands over his clothes, the sodden material abruptly finding itself clean and dry. He was evidently feeling better, the awful pallor of his skin faded to something more natural – in so far as either of their appearances could be called that. That done, he ducked out from under Aziraphale’s arm, “You can bundle yourself up again now, angel.”

That was a thank you, wasn’t it.

Knowing better than to point this out, Aziraphale just smiled at him. It seemed they weren’t going to mess about fighting this year. Oddly pleased by this realisation, he just nodded at the demon.

“I’ll be seeing you?” Aziraphale couldn’t quite pinpoint when he’d come to ask such a question with something dreadfully like _hope_.

“Maybe,” Crowley was walking backwards, remaining looking at Aziraphale even as he began heading away.

For some reason the way he said it made it sound, at least to Aziraphale, very much like a ‘yes’.


	2. Part II: In early twentieth century America

“You are certain this ‘trick or treating’ will lure people into sinning?” Beezlebub looked doubtfully at the small pile of confectionary Crowley had brought down to hell as an example.

After years of all sorts of destruction on October 31st, it hadn’t taken Crowley more than a nudge to tempt one newspaper into urging its frustrated readers to load guns with ‘rock, salt or bird shot’ and get any anyone ‘mischief bent’, arguing when questioned by Hell that the idea of humans ‘peppering’ each other over a night of mayhem did far more for the cause than anyone actually being fatally shot.

Aziraphale’s horror when a prankster did end up dying as a result of a trick gone wrong in Arizona certainly hadn’t influenced Crowley’s decision to tempt people towards basically overindulging in candy instead, of course. Hell had praised him for that one, unaware that the pedestrian had tumbled to the sidewalk and produced a revolver without any infernal prompting – just as they’d been delighted the same year by newspaper reports of a woman literally ‘scared to death’.

Crowley had hidden his discomfort behind a cool smile and his sunglasses when recommended for a promotion for that, just as he effortlessly concealed his distaste now as Beezlebub’s flies made the most of the treat.

“Oh yes,” he gestured expansively in response to zzzzzzir question, crafting a carefully artless smirk on his face, “Just think of all the _gorging_, the greed; the jealousy when someone else gets something _better_, making all your own candy seem tasteless in comparison. Think of all the resentment – your costume won’t be as good as everyone else’s, your haul of chocolates is smaller, your –”

“Yes, yes,” Beezelbub waved zzzzzzir hand, “It all seems very – petty.”

“And we approve of that, don’t we,” Crowley agreed winsomely.

Afterwards, back in the human world, he found Aziraphale trying to convince a small distressed mortal that it was okay, he didn’t have to bob for apples at the community Halloween party; it was very sensible not to want to dunk one’s face into water that could contain who knows how many people’s saliva.

“It _is_ pretty disgusting,” Crowley agreed brightly, with the tone of one who knows exactly how many germs a kid would pick up if they tried it.

“Wow, great teeth!” Said kid piped up, so Crowley bared them at him, just to make him yelp and dash off, squealing.

In fear, obviously.

“That was very – ah, _not at all_ nice of you to distract the poor thing,” His lips twitching, Aziraphale straightened up, brushing down the absolutely _terrible_ costume he was wearing. Crowley grinned at the sight of it. His decision to tempt people to do more than throw on a sheet passed off as a 'shroud' had been inspired.

“Finished your meeting with your lot then, angel?” he aimed a nod up at the sky.

“Clearly,” Aziraphale rolled his eyes a bit at him, a display of not at all angelic behaviour Crowley was always pleased to see. He also smirked, which was even less angelic, and leaned in closer to Crowley, as if not to be overheard by the cluster of nearby young people giggling over the old tradition of paring apples in the hope of divining the names of future spouses. “I convinced the Archangel Michael that rather than encouraging people to renew efforts to ban Halloween, it was a lovely idea for youngsters to enjoy themselves letting loose in a much more controlled manner than previous decades and to refrain from mischief making in order to eat good food and play games with their neighbours.”

Crowley bit into one of the apples, “Kind of similar to what we’ve been doing in a way, don’t you think?”

“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,” Aziraphale gave him an arch look, “Although that bit of tempting went quite nicely, if I do say so myself.”

“Ah yes, good to hear,” Hell had wanted a local priest lured into giving up his profession. Having sampled the man’s cooking, thanks to a certain angel snaffling Crowley a portion he somehow just so happened to be able to safely eat, Crowley was of the same opinion as Aziraphale that the man would do much better as a chef. He elbowed Aziraphale, “I nipped that bit of troublemaking you wanted sorting out in the bud on the way back, by the way; all the do-gooders freshly blessed and full of praise, and all that. Even picked up a souvenir.”

“Hm?” Aziraphale’s eyebrows shot up as Crowley produced a small package from a pocket, carefully wrapped just in case.

He passed it to the angel without looking, “Here.”

“But this is –” Aziraphale’s brow wrinkled even further as he rummaged through the cloth to unearth the round little soul cake within, stuffed with dried raisins and currants, and smelling richly of spices, “Crowley, I haven’t seen one of these in _years_. And in England, wasn’t it, not here –”

Shrugging, Crowley stalwartly pretended not to notice all the unspoken wonder and gratitude Aziraphale was aiming at him. It had only been a bit of a detour.

“Remembered you liked them, that’s all,” he said, and regretted it an instant later.

“I _love_ them,” Thankfully Aziraphale was busy inspecting the little cake, “Oh look, and whoever made this one didn’t quite manage to get the cross on top right, did they.” He squinted at it, smiling, “Actually, the marks rather remind me of two pairs of wings, one lighter and one dark.”

Funnily enough Crowley might also have had this thought.

“Yeah?” was all he said blandly, although he accepted a portion of the cake when Aziraphale broke it in half.

“For you,” Aziraphale’s fingers lingered for a moment against Crowley’s palm, “Thank you, my dear.”

“It’s nothing,” Shifting to avoid a group of excited children in Halloween outfits nearly as awful as the angel’s, Crowley took a step closer to Aziraphale, near enough their elbows brushed.

He bit into his cake to avoid making eye contact. He’d never liked the taste as much as Aziraphale, but the idea of eating something technically forbidden to his kind appealed nonetheless.

“It’s everything,” Aziraphale corrected gently, quiet enough Crowley could make out he didn’t hear, and stepped closer himself, until their arms were pressed together from shoulder to shoulder as they continued to watch over the crowd.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The newspapers referenced are the Cook County Herald (Nov 8th 1902), which recommended shooting trespassers at Halloween with ‘rock, salt or bird shot’, The Topeka Daily Capital (Nov 2nd 1907), which contains the article about the pedestrian killing the prankster, and the poor woman scared to death was written about in The Marion Star (Nov 1st 1907). All are online at Newspapers.com.
> 
> The giving of soul or soulmass cakes dates back to the medieval period in England as part of Souling, a Christian tradition to remember the dead. The educational reforms in the late 19th century meant the practice declined, but it still takes place in some counties and countries today.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Of Fire & Spice](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27229972) by [Djapchan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Djapchan/pseuds/Djapchan)


End file.
